Is maybe your friend?

Yesterday was full of maybe’s. I’d been booked to do a one day course in London, and I was trying to buy my rail ticket over the phone. As I was speaking, the guy at the other end said to me, “I’m sorry, sir, my computer screen has just blanked out. All our system is down. Could you call back later?” I tried, but it was the same story. A third time, the same. Wasn’t that annoying?

Maybe.

I was just beginning to get frustrated, when my phone rang. It was the man who’d booked me. “Listen,” he said, “Am I too late to postpone you for a week? We’ve got a hitch this end.”

There is a story I rather like. A poor Indian farmer has a small piece of land and a horse. He is old, but his healthy son works the land and can ride the horse. One day, the horse runs away. The neighbours gather round and say how terrible it is. “You poor man,” they cry, “now you cannot work your land. That’s terrible.”

“Well, maybe,” is all the old farmer says.

The next day, the horse returns with two wild horses. The neighbours cry, “It’s a miracle. Now you have three horses. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Well, maybe,” says the old man.

The farmer’s son is breaking in the wild horses when one of them throws him and he falls badly and breaks his leg. The neighbours are horrified. “Now you have no one to work the land. That’s awful,” they wail.

You guessed what the farmer says, haven’t you? “Well, maybe.”

The next day, war breaks out, and the government conscript all healthy young men into the army. When they get to the farmer’s house, they cannot take his son because of his broken leg.

“It’s wonderful,” cry the neighbours, (who obviously don’t learn very fast). “Now your son will be spared the war. Isn’t that fabuloso?”

By now, you know what the farmer said. He said, “Well, maybe.” …………..

In Chinese, the character for crisis is also the character for “opportunity.” You can’t see round corners, but if you trust that the corners are there, and that you’ll always find a way to handle whatever is there when you turn them, you’ll simply enjoy discovering what you’re capable of. If you resist, you’ll hurt.